Abstract:
The number of native speakers of the Indonesian language (Bahasa Indonesia) is widely underestimated. A striking example is Ethnologue, which until recently claimed that Indonesian had only 23 million native speakers. The prevailing assumption is that most Indonesians grow up speaking a regional language as their first language and only begin learning Indonesian when they enter school. Based on this view, Indonesians are often not considered native speakers of the national language because their exposure to Indonesian supposedly starts too late.
This article argues that such a scenario may have been accurate in the decades following independence, and perhaps until the 1980s, but it no longer reflects the linguistic reality of 21st-century Indonesia. Today, Indonesian is understood throughout the country, including in very remote areas. Most Indonesians now grow up in a bilingual environment, speaking both Indonesian and a regional language. While regional languages are still widely used within families, speakers typically switch to Indonesian as soon as a conversation moves beyond familiar or local topics.
Using data from the 2010 census and additional sources, this article argues that the number of native speakers of the Indonesian language has exceeded one hundred million. This places Indonesian among the top ten languages in the world by number of native speakers.
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The full article is approximately 20 pages long and can be downloaded free of charge. © Uli Kozok 2016.
Summary
A brief and accessible summary of the article is available here.